Marriage Education: Oklahoma WelfareWhen President Bush announced in 2001 that his administration was going to devote $1.5 billion to promote marriage, his critics said the initiative was one more way the president was trying to advance the cause of his conservative supporters. Alix Spiegel profiles an Oklahoma program for women on welfare.

Marriage Education: Why Marriages Fail With John Gottman and Howard Markman on Marriage Education. Examines the 20 years of research providing the intellectual underpinning of a federally-backed marriage education curriculum. Psychologists have identified four key problems that lead to divorce: criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stonewalling. Marriage Education: Debating Marriage's Effect on PovertyExamines the relationship between the decision not to marry and poverty. Critics and supporters of government-sponsored marriage education continue to debate the solution to helping poor families: marriage education -- and marriage promotion -- or economic assistance. Interviews Dr Wade Horn and a couple.

NPR: Danny and Annie:I heard this story on NPR this morning about this wonderful married couple, Danny and Annie Perasa. Their stories are a real inspirationand I encourage everyone tolisten. And, while you're there, tool around on the site and listen the different sound bites and read the letters from listeners. 2/06

Diane, Yesterday (3/29/06) All Things Considered featured a "mother's support group". The perspective of a single mom, was very different from her married counterparts. While the married mothers universally whined about how their husbands just couldn't do anything right, the single commentator noted that she would be thankful for ANY help, especially that of a husband.

Willard Harley talks about how women are more than willing to comment negatively on their husband's annoying habits (openly in our culture) than the reverse. Gottman warns us of the "decision to be grumpy." And Smart Marriages understands and honors our very important gender differences....that we CAN all LEARN to get along lovingly and with much more hope, joy, and fun.

The marriage counselor community is looking at a split -- between therapists who focus on keeping couples together and those who counsel the individuals, without trying to avert a divorce. For the unhappy couple, it can be hard to know which you're getting.

I have seen nothing that makes the point as well as this young woman's voice. Roger in Wichita

I encourage you to listen - it's short, only 3 minutes - at your marriedparents groups. It's about couples with new infants but would apply just aswell to couples with kids of any age. - diane

The marriage counselor community islooking at a split -- between therapists who focus on keeping couples together and those who counsel the individuals, without trying to averta divorce. For the unhappy couple, it can be hard to know which you're getting.

Long deployments make marriage especiallydifficult for military couples. In an effort to reverse the high divorce ratein the armed services, the Army has created a marriage-counseling program thatteaches military couples basic relationship skills.It's only about 5 mins and it's great.

What happens when math and marriage mix? This is data from a study by John Gottman, a clinical psychologist and mathematician who has developed a nearly sure-fire method of determining whether a married couple is healthy or doomed to split up ­ all within fifteen minutes. He hooks his subjects up to various monitors and videotapes them arguing for fifteen minutes. The way they communicate is scored into positive and negative moments, generating charts like these. His accuracy Rate at predicting who'll stay together? Ninety-four percent. This week, what Gottman sees in your marriage that you can't, and other stories from within and without the institution of marriage.

NPR: Morning Edition: Welfare and Marriage Features Wade Horn and others Successful relationships, whether dating, engaged, newlywed or married take work and at any stage can suffer the same challenges; problems with communication, intimacy and time spent together to name just a few. If you could take a class to teach you how to have successful relationships....would you take it? Learning relationship skills to last a lifetime on Talk of the Nation